Russell Brand aka RustyRockets reinvents Twitter

Twitter got a boot up the backside this evening as Russell Brand entered the world of Twitter.

I first saw it when a colleague, journalist and industry peer all mentioned that @rustyrockets had set up a Twitter account but hadn't yet posted. I clicked on the link and, lo an behold, a tweet. And 800 followers. Not bad going for a new account, even from a celeb like BRand (who you might say would be more Twitter than Wossy, Stephen Fry or Schofe).

Then I check back a minute later and he has 1,300 followers. Wha!? 500 new follows in a minute? (by the time I finished writing this post, it is at 1,898)

So I plug his tag into the Twitter search engine and find he is being mentioned across the web dozens of times per second.

I've not seen Twitter accounts grow this quick ever. It doesnt take a rocket scientist to see that Mr Rusty Rockets is about to redefine Twitter.

[Update - my post got picked up by Jack Schofield for an article on the Rusty Rocketeer in The Guardian]

Here are some screen grabs of everything in action:

Rusty in his infancy, 11pm tonight:

And here's 70-odd mentions in less than a minute:

Comments

[Dave Kinsella]

Good grief!

I don't doubt that nobody has ever created so much activity in Twitter with only two tweets, but blog posts about it as well?

It's like Russell has hit the web with a gigantic gravitational field. He's a black hole sucking everything in.

How long do you think it will be before the Daily Mail becomes outraged at something that he or Wossy post on Twitter?

[Midge D]

Publicise certainly, redefine i'm not convinced. I can't see how Celebrities joining Twitter is going to make a huge difference to how people use it other than letting them follow their favourite actor/actress for 140 characters worth of gossip?. Once they realise the opportunity for actual interaction is slim i'm pretty sure the novelty will wear off.

[Jon Russell]

With more and more people I know joining the service I get so many updates it is impossible to stay in touch with the those I value highest. (NB I only follow 180-odd and regular preen.)

With Twitter gaining mainstream attention it is time to allow users to 'manage' accounts...similar to RSS feeds. By that I mean categorising - one stream for 'work' tweets, one for 'news', one for 'friends', one for 'celebs', etc and an option to see all updates.

The service is successful as it is simple and efficient yet I am fast becoming disillusioned with pain of sifting through so much information every daily.

The additional of millions more voices could overwhelm users with noise and ruin the service as we know it. Or am I just lazy?!

[Midge]

Jon Russell, have you tried Tweetdeck?. it allows you to group followees into all sorts of categories.

[Filip]

The beginning of the end. =]